New toll road: Indianapolis-Houston 1,020 mile turnpike link proposed, $7b

A feasibility study by Wilbur Smith Associates (WSA) and Howard Needles (HNTB) Corporation, consulants, suggests major economic benefits from construction of a $5 to $7 billion expressway link between Indianapolis and Houston. (Corridor 18 Feasibility Study, Final Report, November 1995, submitted by WSA, HNTB to FHwA and a group of state highway departments, distribution by Arkansas highway department.) The 1,020 mile project (Cor.18) if built to accomodate long, heavy double and triple tractor-trailers would yield a social rate of return of 16.5% on a capital outlay of $6.2 billion (an autos&long-truckway.) The study suggests it might best be financed by a mix of tolls and gas taxes.

Three different kinds of road are financially modeled as well as the autos/long-truckway: a regular interstate costing $5.5b and yielding 9.9% return, and a highpeed highway with automated highway features that would cost $8.7b and return 7.1%. Building the road for long heavy truck combinations (turnpike doubles and triples with a weight limit of 135,000 pds compared to the regular 80,000pd limit) is on this figuring clearly the preferred option. The 12 percent extra cost of equipping the road for long trucks goes to build an extra climbing lane on upgrades, stronger bridges to take the extra weight, and gentler wider ramp curves to accomodate offtracking. Those costs are well offset by an average 35% increase in long truck productivity as compared to regular truck limits. (p11-7) The extra traffic attracted and willingness to pay premium tolls make the extra investment to allow long rigs profitable to the roadbuilder.

Intelligent highway ‘unintelligent’

By contrast, the consultants figuring makes the 85 mph automated highway sound unattractive. Part of the extra cost is apparently the construction costs of greater straightness needed to get the long sight lines needed for safe 85mph travel but the largest factor is building the road 6 lanes throughout rather than mainly 4 lanes as in the regular interstate and autos&long-trucks design. The idea is that an exclusive automated lane will be needed in each direction and two regular lanes — an awful lot of pavement for a highway that is only expected to attract 60,000 veh/day in parts.

The study says tolls would be “a substantial source of funds for the project.” (p8-11). But it also states flatly that there isn’t the traffic to make the project viable on tolls alone. Reason for that is that with tolls on the new highway much of the traffic — about a third — eschews the tollway for the more circuitous sawtooth plan route described by the existing interstates. It would be interesting to know whether the project would be a viable toll road, and therefore not have to wait on government gas tax money, if the alternate routes were to be tolled simultaneously to discourage the diversions!

More studies needed...

We don’t mean to sound like a shill for consultants but we are intrigued by another unexplored option. Since the big money is in the long trucks, why not run up some numbers for initially building the facility for long trucks and other trucks exclusively, say as a 2x13ft laner? This might allow a $2 billion construction saving and such a long-truckway might be financially self-supporting on tolls? Of course an exclusive truckway could be harder to sell politically. Some of the pressure for this highway is social. It traverses many of the poorest counties of the deep South. Moreover it goes through vast amounts of wetland and environmentalists might rally more fervently against a truckway than a general purpose highway? And the report has pages of endangered species to be found along the route.

About half the 1,020 miles is envisaged as new construction on completely new right-of-way, with the other half being upgrade of existing highway. The study report does not firmly recommend any particular route but scores a bewildering array of alternates. The best appears to be the straightest which runs Indianapolis-Evansville-Memphis east of the Mississippi R. There would almost certainly be a new crossing of the Mississippi R., somewhere south of Memphis so it would go a distance in northwest Mississippi. Then it would cut southwest across southeastern Arkansas to Shreveport and then head pretty directly for Houston. Corridor 18 is the longest stretch of what is sometimes dubbed the NAFTA highway, the concept of a new road linking Mexico, Canada and the U.S. Optimally that would require in addition to the 1,020 mile Cor.18 a new link between Houston and Laredo (also being studied as Corridor 20,) upgrade of the border crossings and links and the Mexican highway system, as well as improvement of I-69 north of Indianapolis to Port Huron Michigan and on Highway 401 in Canada. If the whole NAFTA highway were to be designed for long trucks the economics might improve further. The study points out that some segments of Cor.-18 will be financially more attractive than others, and that it is likely to be built in stages since greater toll revenue will be available from construction of the best bits.

Jim Newland, executive-director of the Mid-Continent Highway Coalition, the Indianpolis-based group that is organizing support for the new road says ideally they’d like to have it built ‘free’ but he says given financial constraints this is probably unrealistic, and a mix of private and public finance and tolls will probably be needed. Next steps are to firm up a detailed route and to come up with a financing scheme. The FHwA has allocated $750,000 to the detailed routing study and is in process of selecting consultants.•